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From left, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senior Adviser to President Donald Trump Jared Kushner as they wait for the President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to begin their meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post. Subscribe here.

Dear Messrs. Ryan, McConnell, Pence, and Priebus,

Its now pretty clear that President Trump, one way or another, will be removed from office. Events and James Comeys testimony have established an open-and-shut case of obstruction of justice.

Trump tried to get Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn; then when Comey refused, Trump fired him. It doesnt get any clearer than that. Not even in Watergate.

In addition, details of the Trump campaigns collusion with the Russians successful efforts to undermine the 2016 election have yet to come out from the special prosecutors investigation. When they do, they wont be pretty; nor will the details of Trumps repeated co-mingling of his business interests with his official business as president.

There is also the fact that Trump is plainly insane. We can argue about the diagnosisserious people have proposed everything from dementia to neurosyphilisbut this is clearly not a man in his right mind. His competence in speaking is steadily deteriorating, as shown by expert comparisons of his clear sentences two decades ago with his near-gibberish in recent weeks and months.

Trump is so damaged that he cant even seriously act in his own self-interest because he cant remember his lies from day to day. His impulsivity regularly undermines yesterdays spin and last weeks alibi.

So Id like to appeal to you both as patriots and as partisans.

The first appeal is simple. This man should not be president of the United States. The 25th Amendment, on grounds of serious impairment, is the most straightforward way to get him out. It is basically a coup by the cabinet, ratified by a two-thirds majority of Congress.

This is something that happens in other democracies all the time, and is about to happen in Britain because of Prime Minister Teresa Mays political lapses. But Trumps lapses are far more serious.

As the mess in Qatar indicates, Trumps plain confusion and lack of serious attention to complex foreign policy issues could cause disastrous national security consequences. He could get us all blown up. I am not privy to your private conversations, of course, but I assume Trumps madness does come up.

Weighing against that is Trumps usefulness to you as Republican conservatives. With him in the White House, you can pass legislation that Trump will sign, get him to issue executive orders furthering your agenda, get conservatives appointed to courtsand as my colleague Paul Starr has observed, the more vulnerable Trump is, the more captive he is to your protection.

On the other hand, Trump is so thoroughly out of his mind that he may not grasp that. I assume that your partisanship, for now at least, outweighs your patriotism. That is a shamehistory will judge you harshly, assuming that we are not all blown to bits.

So let me appeal next to your self-interest.

Trump will go sooner or latereither his obstruction of justice, corruption, and plain treason will become so flagrant that some of your Republican colleagues will begin breaking ranks. Or if they dont, you will be handing the Democrats a massive victory in 2018 and 2020, as you share responsibility and blame for the national catastrophe of the Trump presidency.

You would be much better offand so would the countryif you got Trump out in the next few months, and then sought to regroup under President Pence.

I realize, of course, that Im not a disinterested observer. As the co-editor of a leading progressive journal, I hope that you pay the full consequences of sticking with Trump. But as a political analyst, I think that with Pence youd at least have a fighting chance to hold on to power; and with Trump, youd have no chance.

I may be a sometime partisan, but Im enough of a patriot that I hope that you decide to oust Trump, if not on grounds of patriotism then on grounds of partisanship. And as fellow human beings, we should all be averse to getting blown up.

Yours truly,

Robert Kuttner

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An Open Letter to the Republican Leadership - The American Prospect - The American Prospect